It was signed only with a crosslike figure, a bizarre sketch that might well have represented the claw of a bird—or a dragon, Lucile added with a little intake of breath.
“I must show the girls,” she exclaimed, and nimble as a squirrel, was away over the trestle and up the rope ladder.
When the other girls had heard Lucile’s story and had read the note they were more astonished than alarmed.
“Huh!” exclaimed Florence, gripping an iron rod above her and lifting her full hundred and sixty pounds easily with one hand. “Who’s telling us whether we can stay here or not?”
“I’d say they better not let you get near them,” smiled Lucile.
Florence laughed and, releasing her grip on the rod, sat down to think.
“Doesn’t seem possible it could be anyone living in the other boats,” she mused. “I’ve seen that young man they call Mark Pence, the fellow who lives in the gasoline schooner, just once. He seems to be decent enough.”
“And the old fishermen,” put in Marian, “I hired two of them to pose for some sketches last week. Nice old fellows, they are; a little rough but entirely harmless. Besides, what difference could it make to them whether we live here or not?”
“There’s the Chinamen who run a little laundry in that old scow,” said Lucile thoughtfully, “but they are the mildest-mannered of them all, with their black pajama suits and pigtails.”
“And that’s all of them, except Old Timmie and his wife,” said Florence, rising and pressing the lever which brought the electric range into position. “And as for Timmie, I’d as soon suspect my own father.”